


W.O.L.F.

by shadow_lover



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Frottage, HP: EWE, M/M, Mentor Remus Lupin, Ministry of Magic, Post-Canon, Werewolf Draco Malfoy, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-10 00:26:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7823113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_lover/pseuds/shadow_lover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus knew what he would see even before Draco shoved the sleeve well past his elbow, but the sight of stark white bandages still hit him like a punch to the gut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	W.O.L.F.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kinky_kneazle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinky_kneazle/gifts).



> Thank you so much for requesting these two, and for giving such wonderful ideas in your letter! I can only hope that I did justice to your request. I really enjoyed this dive back into HP fandom :)

When someone knocked at the door, Remus was heaving a box of empty potion bottles from the top shelf in the storage closet. He set the crate down on the floor, the puff of dust reminding him that he really should sweep back there.

Brushing the dust from his trousers, he left the closet to see who was there. He got few visitors at the recently formed and poorly advertised Werewolf Outreach and Liaison Front. Likely it was Wendelin from the Office of Misinformation needing help with the duplication charm again, or Frithuswith, Remus’s supervisor at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, with another refusal for a funding increase.

It was neither Wendelin nor Frithuswith. Instead, Draco Malfoy stood in the doorway, hand poised at a precise angle to the doorframe. His face was impassive and his entire body stiff with unmistakable tension. He reeked of citrus and amber, the scent strong enough it was likely charmed on.

Remus wrinkled his nose.

He hadn’t seen — or even thought of — Draco Malfoy in years. Not since the trials were over and the whole family faded out of the daily papers. He remembered a snotty child acting out for attention; he remembered a white-knuckled youth trying desperately to stay out of the harsh spotlight of war. He wondered what sort of young man had shown up at his office today. Draco would be at least twenty now, and he’d grown up well. His pale features were elegant rather than pointy; his robes skimmed past the lean lines of his body.

“Mr. Malfoy.” Remus sat at his desk, hoping the young man hadn’t noticed his unprofessional perusal. “Can I help you?”

Draco looked behind him, as if checking the hallway for people who might overhear. “I certainly hope so, Professor.” His voice was level, but Remus could hear his pulse picking up with nerves.

“Please, call me Remus. Take a seat.”

Draco came forward, but ignored the cushy chair in front of Remus’s desk. He brought his right arm up. The loose robe sleeve fell back, but his shirtsleeve was still tight at his wrist. He unbuttoned the cuff slowly, his steady fingers very white against the midnight-blue cloth.

Remus knew what he would see even before Draco shoved the sleeve well past his elbow, but the sight of stark white bandages still hit him like a punch to the gut. 

This was not the first time someone had come into his office and revealed their wounds to him, and it would not be the last. 

Remus stood again. “If you close the door, I’ll make tea.”

—

Over tea, Draco revealed that he was clawed two weeks ago. He came to Remus now because the full moon was nearing, and he didn’t know what to do.

When asked who he had told, Draco laughed and looked away. He hadn't told anyone. “What are the chances I’ve turned?”

“I don’t know,” Remus answered. “There isn’t enough data, because most werewolf-inflicted injuries aren’t reported. That’s part of my work here.”

“Of course.” Draco wasn't lashing out like Remus expected. His simmering fury was directed somewhere else entirely, and was nearly sublimated by fear. Remus wished that he wasn't so good at reading people. 

Draco looked thinner than Remus remembered. Perhaps that was just the fact that Remus didn't remember much of Draco. The war had been won three years ago. Everyone was busy rebuilding their own corners of the world; he wondered if Draco had been as alone as he had been.

Lucius was in Azkaban where he belonged. Narcissa, according to Harry, was under discreet supervision in France. Draco was on probation. With the manor still quarantined by the ministry, Remus didn't know where Draco lived or what company he kept.

“How were you hurt?” Remus was neither a medic nor a detective, but he had lived through two wars, and hard times in between. He recognized a defensive wound. Draco’s injury was from a fight, not an ambush.

Draco set the tea down. His fair face twisted. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Somebody recognized me.”

“Who was it?”

“What happens if I give a name?”

“I report the attack to the Werewolf Registry and the Werewolf Capture Unit,” Remus said, then added, “I can keep your name out of it.” He didn't know the terms of Draco’s probation, but he had a feeling they'd been rather bent by this incident. 

Draco’s lips parted like he was about to speak, and then he slumped back. “I can't do that. Not right now, I can't deal—” He was cradling his injured arm against himself.

“That's fine.” A familiar, furious ember rekindled inside him. Deep, dark, ugly memories, suppressed under thick layers of newer hurts. No matter how far he came, no matter how much he did, he could never stop this cycle. His own demon was three years dead; there were always more lurking in the shadows.

He couldn’t stop the cycle, but he could make it easier on the next survivor. He could make it easier on the man sitting across from him, stirring his tea again. This world wasn’t perfect, but it was a damn sight better than the one he grew up in.

“What you do next is up to you,” he said. “I'm just here to help with what I can. You don't have to decide anything today.”

Draco almost smiled at that. “I was expecting more of an interrogation there.”

“Were you?”

“I guess not. You were always…” He looked away. “You were always fair. Even when I screwed you over back in school.”

It took Remus a second to remember what he meant. Then he laughed. “You didn't screw me over. Your dad screwed me over. There’s a significant difference.”

“All right,” Draco said, looking startled. Then he smiled. “Let's not talk about my father, though.”

“Fair enough.”

The brief flash of — was it flirtation, or was Remus imagining that? It passed, and Draco fidgeted. He worked the hem of his sleeve between thumb and forefinger. His knee, every so often, jiggled beneath his robe. “When will I know that I've turned?”

“You won’t know for certain until the full moon.”

“Three nights from now.”

“That’s right. Do you have plans?”

“Do I have someone who can lock me up, you mean?”

“That's right,” Remus said again. There was no delicate way to put it. “If you don't have anyone to stay with you…” He stood and moved to his desk. He grabbed a quill with which to scribble on a small stretch of parchment. “This is my address. If you come before the moon rises, you can stay with me.”

Draco stared, and didn’t take the parchment. “I'll be fine.”

Remus set the parchment on the low table between them, next to the teapot. He held that pale gray gaze. “You can't take Wolfsbane Potion the first time. Not when you don't know whether you've turned. The Aconite will kill you as a human. But if you _have_ turned — you’ll claw yourself up. It’s easier to be with someone.”

He knew Draco could see the scars on his face.

Draco was gone moments later. And though Remus hadn’t seen him take it, the parchment was gone too.

—

Three days passed without word from Draco Malfoy. The office was quiet. Remus used the time to catch up on memos and paperwork and cleaning. He had dinner with Harry and Ginny. He took the three days of the full moon off every month, and he liked to spend the lead-up to that tying up loose ends.

It was peculiar, he thought sometimes. His greatest burden had become a reassuring sort of structure to his life.

At eight in the evening the night of the full moon, his fireplace flared. Remus looked up from his book to see Draco stepping onto his hearth. His hair was loose, windswept from the Floo journey, and Remus smelled soot and smoke clinging to him.

“I expected you later,” Remus said, trying to stifle the unseemly warmth in his belly at the sight of Draco. He hadn’t been certain he would come. “We've still got a few hours.”

Draco brushed the soot from his shoulders. “Sorry. I should have given you notice.”

Remus folded his book and set it on the table, next to the still-smoking goblet he’d emptied hours ago. “Come into the kitchen, let me get you something to drink.”

“Is tea your solution to everything?”

“Not tonight,” Remus said, and pulled out the Firewhisky.

—

Remus felt the moon’s pull first. Draco was too nervous still to discern the newer tension. He was talking, his posture slumped too casually, his voice too high and fast, telling Remus about everything he did on his trip to the seaside two months ago. Every muggle bar he visited, the funny drinks they served, how lucky he was that Pansy had such a deft hand at hangover charms—

Then he froze.

Remus plucked the half-empty glass from his fingertips, and Draco seized his wrist before he could pull away. His grip was weak, but Remus was powerless to break it. Only the barest circle of silver was visible around his dilated pupils, and Remus thought stupidly that everything about this man shone brighter than the moon. 

“It’s too late for Wolfsbane Potion, isn’t it,” Draco said.

Remus stroked the hair back from Draco’s forehead. His hand lingered too long in the soft tresses. “Let’s get downstairs,” he murmured. He couldn’t break the cycle, but he could ease the way. “Could you leave your wand here?”

Draco hesitated, then slipped his wand from his sleeve, and left it where Remus pointed.

He followed willingly enough, but Remus didn’t want to test that. He kept one hand loose around Draco’s elbow, ready to tighten. His other hand was in easy reach of his wand. Draco shivered. His breath was shallow and his pulse very loud.

Remus’s house wasn’t large, but it was a house, not a flat. Set far back on the property, it was well away from the neighbors, and had a basement.

“How are you feeling?” Remus asked, even though he knew the answer. Or perhaps he didn’t. His first time was so long ago, and he had been alone. His parents had been with him, but he was still alone.

He didn’t want Draco to be alone.

“It’s too hot,” Draco gritted out. “Or too cold. My robe doesn’t fit right. And I feel…”

“It’s all right to be scared.”

“I feel angry.” He was hunched in on himself, and shaking harder.

“That’s all right too.” Remus pushed open the basement door. He lifted his hand, and with a moment’s concentration, his palm filled with silver flames to light the room. He lifted his hand and the flames darted up to hover at the center of the ceiling.

There was nothing in the basement that Remus would be sad to see destroyed. He hadn’t had a rough change since the war, after which Harry gave him a copy of an old potions textbook with a clearer, easier-to-follow recipe for Wolfsbane Potion scribbled in the margins, but some lessons never get forgotten. There was a single window, wider than it was tall, high along the eastern wall. The carpet was very soft, and only torn up along one wall. A king-sized mattress was made up in a low bed — he’d almost just gotten a dog bed when he moved in, since they were cheaper, but his pride hadn’t quite allowed it. The only other furniture was a small, charmed trunk bolted to the floor beneath the window.

There was nothing in the room he couldn’t see destroyed, except the young man walking in, his tread so heavy it was like he was walking to Azkaban. Remus closed the door, then flicked his wand to lock them both in. 

Remus knelt before the trunk and closed his wand inside. The padlock was a formality; the trunk was spelled shut from the time the moon rose until the time it set. He and Draco would be too far gone to use wandless, wordless magic; they were trapped until the night’s transformation was over.

When he stood to turn to his charge again, Draco was bone-white. “What will it be like?”

Remus held back, not wanting to crowd him, and said, “It will hurt.” There was no point in saying more; Draco would know soon enough. “You should take your clothes off.”

Draco laugh was barely more than a breath. “You first.”

“You don’t have much time left.”

That was true. It was also true that he didn’t want Draco to see his scars. Not yet. Remus’s body was a ruin. Draco didn’t need to be even more frightened now.

Draco nodded tightly. He sat on the mattress and worked off his shoes and socks, then stood again. His hands shook. His fingernails darkened, sharpened. He fumbled at the fastenings of his robes. Snarling in frustration, he staggered towards Remus. “Sorry, could you—”

Remus took Draco’s hands, felt the heat building under his skin, and pulled them down. He undid the fastenings. Draco wore no scent charm today, and Remus breathed in the animal musk rising with every moment. He slid the robe from Draco’s shoulders, then helped him pull the undershirt over his head.

As the fabric puddled to the floor, his eyes caught on Draco’s slim chest: the pale skin was marred by a silver network of scars, like his skin was a mirror, shattered and glued back together. There was another scar, pinker and uglier, along his left forearm — and of course, his right forearm, still bandaged, the scent of injury still raw and new.

Remus was ashamed of his own attempt to hide. He forgot sometimes he wasn’t the only thing broken after the war.

Draco wasn’t thinking of any of that. He was utterly unselfconscious in his delirium — eyes wide, breath rapid. The shape of his face began to change. He clutched at Remus’s shoulders as Remus worked his boxers down, and his new-grown claws punctured his skin. Remus hardly felt the pain past the moon’s pull.

He would feel guilty for looking, then, if he had time to look. Instead, Draco tore from his grasp and hunched over, gasping. His bones contorted beneath his skin. It was nauseating until the fur pushed up from smooth, bare skin, covering the worst of the contortions. The bandages stretched, then ripped off his arm. A raw, angry, half-healed set of gashes were visible. They healed before Remus’s eyes.

When the transformation was complete, Draco crouched trembling in the center of the room. Remus knew what that was like. Senses realigned; synapses reconnected; the world was suddenly so loud and pungent. Draco’s tongue lolled over jagged teeth. His ears pinned to his skull.

Remus closed his fist, and the silver flames vanished from above them, leaving them in darkness.

With the Wolfsbane Potion, he had more control, but not by much. He stripped quickly. By the time he was naked, his bones already stretched and burned within him.

—

Remus stayed lucid and calm through the night. Draco didn’t. He paced the basement room. He clawed at the door until Remus shouldered him away with a warning growl. Remus was glad that in this guise too he was larger than Draco, and he’d had longer to keep control of his wolf. He could push Draco around and keep him from hurting himself too badly.

At last, Draco was content to simply pace. Remus retreated to the mattress and curled up, tail flicked over his nose. He watched Draco’s slow, sleek movements, back and forth across the room, until he fell asleep.

—

Remus woke up with something tickling his lips. His bones ached, as they always did after a change, but other than that he was warm and comfortable, wrapped up in the down comforter and the sleek, warm body draped—

His eyes snapped open. The tickling sensation was soft, white-gold hair brushing against his face. Draco was curled against him, half over him, cheek warm against his shoulder.

This wasn’t how Remus had planned the morning to go. Honestly, he hadn’t planned the morning at all. How else were they to end up, locked in a room with only one bed, and both stripped down and aching with the cold and the moon?

He had to disentangle himself before Draco woke. He held his breath and began sliding sideways, but then a slim hand moved along his ribs. The movement was gentle and deliberate, and somehow the slow heat of it steadied him. He knew without looking which scars Draco was tracing.

“Don’t move,” Draco murmured. His breath was warm and wet against Remus’s chest. Then his hand wandered up Remus’s ribcage to press over his heart. He pushed up, weight braced on his other arm. His leg hooked between Remus’s thighs.

Remus asked, “Are you all right?” because it was the question he was supposed to ask. His voice was rough with sleep, with the change, with a much deeper instinct.

“I don’t know.” Draco was very still above him, and Remus had the sense that all his power and energy was coiling up, building and building, and any second it would explode outward and into Remus. The grin unfurling across his face was wickedly hot. His eyes were so bright. For the first time, Remus saw the family resemblance to Sirius.

Every werewolf reacted differently to the change. Remus was left exhausted and anxious, when that anxiety wasn’t smoothed over by Wolfsbane Potion. Draco, it seemed, was left simmering with pent-up heat.

Draco leaned down, flushed pink, and asked, “Is this okay?”

Remus could barely breathe, “ _Yes_ ,” before Draco’s lips were against his, that long pale hair a curtain around him. He closed his eyes against the brightness of it all, and he didn’t know when his fingers curled tight in Draco’s hair, holding him down or pulling himself up. Draco whined and melted against him when he tugged hard.

Draco broke away, eyes half-shuttered, hovering bare inches from Remus. He shook just as hard as he shook the night before.

“You should know,” Remus panted, “when I invited you to pass the moon with me, I didn’t intend for—”

“But you want to, yeah?” Draco’s arousal was hot and clear against Remus’s thigh.

Remus dragged him down by his hair again. He licked into that hot, wet mouth. They fit together far better than he would have expected, and Remus found himself growling roughly into Draco’s lips. Draco moaned and moved against him. He swung his leg over Remus to straddle his hips, rocking so their cocks lined up hot together. Remus growled again, bucking up against the smooth heat of Draco’s skin. He clutched Draco’s arms.

“That’s it,” Draco said breathlessly. “And will you — will you hold me down?”

His voice was so plaintive and demanding that it erased every last shred of uncertainty. Remus knew this too: the feeling like he might fall apart if someone didn’t hold him together. He’d been lucky to have people to hold him together, and he could do that for Draco too.

He surged and flipped them over, slotting in between Draco’s thighs, Draco’s calves pressing into his ass and pulling him closer. Draco’s hair splayed over the threadbare pillowcase, and he looked up with a desire that took Remus’s breath away. Somehow, Draco didn’t seem to mind the scars and graying hair, the marks of his affliction.

Remus slid one arm beneath Draco so he could brace on one elbow as he held him closer. The other hand went back to Draco’s face, his hair, smoothing over him as they kissed again. Draco’s arms slid over his shoulders, fingernails raking over his back, thin lines of sweet pain between the scars. Draco rocked up as Remus thrust against him. Now there was slickness between them, his or Draco’s or both. They were both sweating, and in the scant moments he pulled away he saw Draco flushed with this, bright pink from his cheeks down to his chest.

Their rhythm was rough, not quite slick enough, but it was perfect. It was what they needed, and as Remus rocked down he couldn’t tell one heartbeat from the other. He couldn’t tell apart the gasps and snarls.

That could be Draco’s choking whine, as he threw his head back and arched up, shuddering. Hot fluid splattered over Remus’s stomach. He wanted to savor the feeling, the sound, the sight, but it was all so much. He curved over, pressing his sweat-damp forehead to Draco’s shoulder. His release was white-hot and blinding. He felt transformed by it. 

Fingers tangled in his hair as he came down. Draco petted his hair back, traced his ear, scraped through the stubble on his jaw.

Then he shifted beneath Remus, pushing at him, and Remus obeyed to fall at his side. He watched the rapid rise and fall of Draco’s chest, pink nipples taut, his stomach wet with their mingled come.

Draco half-sat, glancing sideways down at Remus. “Thank you.”

Remus laughed. “That, at least, wasn’t altruism.”

Then, through the afterglow, he remembered all the rest, and his laughter faded. Last night was proof that Draco had turned, and there was no undoing that: the rest of his life was forever altered. And that was a path that Remus couldn’t walk _for_ him, and his bones had to hurt in strange new ways, he had to be terrified—

Long fingers again caressed his cheek, and then Draco stretched down beside him. He left space between them, but that was nothing when the bed smelled of them together, when Draco’s heartbeat was so loud it echoed in his ears.

“I’m going to sleep now,” Draco said, eyes fluttering closed. “You can stay. When we wake up, you’re making me breakfast while I have a panic attack about being a werewolf. But I’m sleeping first.”

Remus closed his eyes too. “Sensible plan,” he agreed, and he knew suddenly that everything was going to be all right. Draco was going to be all right.

The last tension eased from him, and he relaxed onto the bed, but didn’t quite sleep — just drifted off listening to Draco’s steadying breath.


End file.
